


Edification

by nickofhearts



Series: A Study in Perspective [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, The Demon Prince
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: When is a monster not a monster? When youbecomeit.





	1. never bitter

Izunia has always been with him, a quiet presence in the back of Noct's mind.

He plays with Noct when there's no one else around, sings him songs in a language that sounds as sad as it is beautiful. Noct doesn't understand the words at first, but he learns.

 _Who are you,_ Noct has never had to ask. Izunia is a part of him more intrinsic than knowing how to breathe.

-

Izunia holds his hands out, walking backwards step by step, teaching Noct how to tap into the magic of the Crystal, the magic that all Lucian kings have access to, but Noct especially, because Izunia's soul, and by extension Noct's soul, has been connected to it for so very long. "Magic is about feeling, Noctis. If you want it to do something badly enough, it will shape itself to your needs."

Noct doesn't notice he's at the edge of the roof until Izunia suddenly vanishes, appearing behind him and giving him a mischievous smile, followed by a hard shove. _"Now fly."_

-

Noct knows that Izunia takes over for him sometimes, that he _frightens_ people. He says it's to protect Noct, and Noct knows that's true, because he gets flashes of things that happened in his dreams sometimes, things he never experienced.

There's a monster as tall as the entrance hall of the Citadel, screaming with a horrible voice, but Izunia tears through it like it's made of nothing more than paper. His swords gleam with red light, and then with blood, but Noct is unafraid. Izunia is his shield, protecting him from all things that would seek him harm.

"Will you teach me?" Noct asks, the shining swords that came to being in Izunia's hands like things out of a story.

"Of course, sweet Noctis," Izunia tells him, laying a kiss on his forehead. "I shall teach you _everything."_

-

Noct is falling, but he's not afraid. He closes his eyes and reaches out for the magic like Izunia taught him, and it reaches back, stretching out around him in glowing lines of blue. _Float,_ it tells him, and he stops falling mere inches away from the ground.

" _Float_ ," Noct murmurs to himself, the shape of the word in the old tongue strange in his mouth.

 _"Well_ done," Izunia reappears smiling at his side, distracting him from the throng of people talking in hushed whispers around them, backing away when Noct gets near.

-

In other dreams, there is a man clothed all in shadows, yellow eyes luminescent in the darkness. He screams Izunia's name like he can call him to his side by the power of his want alone, clawing at the air.

"Who's that?" Noct asks, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

Izunia rests his arms on the edge of the bed, his chin propped against them. "My truest love," he says, shifting to poke Noct on the nose.

"He's...still alive?" Noct asks, scrunching his face back.

The man had seemed not alive like Izunia is alive, sharing Noct's body, but like he's lived all the two thousand years from the time Izunia was born to the present. It seems startlingly lonely to Noct, who has never had to be alone.

"He loves me so very much that he's followed me through all my lives," Izunia says, smiling at Noct but not _for_ him, a warmth that spreads over his whole entire face.


	2. all delicious

"The key to winning a battle," Izunia lectures, "is by outsmarting your enemy. You needn't be stronger than them, Noctis, only _better."_ He taps two fingertips against Noct's forehead, _"protect,"_ then his chin, _"shell,"_ each of Noct's cheeks, _"bravery,"_ and, _"faith."_

"And most important of all," drawing a line down over the bridge of Noct's nose, _"haste."_

-

Izunia is ageless in that he appears to Noct at whatever age is most convenient to him at the time. Sometimes he's older than Noct, so tall that Noct _yearns_ to grow up faster, reaching a height equal to most kids his age at least; sometimes Izunia decides to be younger.

This afternoon, he's exactly the same.

"Today's lesson is on kissing," Izunia says, and Noct perks up immediately. "Physical closeness is merely another kind of battlefield, Noctis, _never forget this."_

He strokes a hand deliberately down the side of Noct's face, letting the touch remain light and teasing, making Noct shiver. "You want to draw them in, but not so quickly that they think they've already won the prize." Izunia presses his lips against Noct's, fleetingly so Noct is leaning forward without realizing it, trying to follow Izunia back for more.

"Oh," he says, when Izunia taps him on the nose, flicking his fingers to shoo Noct away.

Noct nods, then mimics Izunia's actions from before. A soft touch to Izunia's face, an even gentler press of his mouth, but instead of letting him pull back, Izunia catches him and deepens the kiss, the slick slide of his tongue over Noct's own electric in its unexpectedness, intense and dangerously tantalizing.

"Lesson two," Izunia tells him, "keep them off their guard."

-

It's not that Noct is clumsy, but that he tends to be uncareful with himself, quick to dash through the halls in excitement rather than watching his step genteelly like a young prince should. The fifth time he'd scraped his knees bloody falling on the hard stone floor, Izunia had sighed at him and sat himself down by Noct's side.

"Watch carefully," he'd said, holding a palm to Noct's knee. _"Cure,"_ in that old haunting tongue that Izunia had explained was the language of the gods.

Noct nodded, awed.

He'd quickly gotten up again and peeled down the halls in a dead sprint, racing the rest of the way to the chocobo stables. 

There's been a chick that was sick, which was why he'd been running in the first place, Noct wanting to check if she'd gotten any better in the night. He gets there now to see that he's too late, the chick cold and still on the ground. Noct tries anyway, casting the spell again and again until his fingers are numb with it, but there's no change that he can see through the wet curtain of his tears. 

"You want a different spell for that," Izunia tells him, something strange in his voice.

He sits himself on the ground again by Noct's side, holding their hands together over the body. _"Revive,"_ he says, the magic that curls through Noct's palm this time burning like fire, but when the pain fades, the chick is chirping happily at him, aglow with white light, and Noct doesn't think any further on it.


	3. and one for the lover that takes their love away

Noct knows what they call him behind his back, _The Demon Prince_ , because of the things Izunia does—strange, terrifying things that seem to them like random acts of violence and cruelty, because they don't understand. They can't see all the things that Izunia can, the way he watches the Kingsglaive's Captain and says to Noct, "that man is a traitor. But what he doesn't know can't hurt us, and what he _does_ know could be very useful indeed." 

He taps Noct on the tip of his nose, "go to sleep, Noctis," and Noct grumbles but closes his eyes obligingly, letting Izunia slip into the spaces of the body that they share.

Noct read a story once about all the lives in the world being contained in an endless room, a sea of candles that keeps the darkness at bay. He imagines that Izunia is walking through it, pinching out flames, but the room doesn't get any darker for it.

-

His father takes him to see the Oracle, though Noct isn't sure why. There's nothing wrong with him.

Izunia laughs when they meet Princess Lunafreya's lady-in-waiting. "I remember that face!" he says with Noct's voice, "Ardyn's going to be mad when he sees you like that." He makes Noct smile—" _I like it."_

Lady Gentiana smiles back, serene though there's something in it that isn't unlike Izunia's own. "Not as mad as when he sees you!"

The Oracle gives him a look of confusion and Noct shrugs. The story of Izunia and Ardyn spans continents and eras and physical planes of existence, so complicated it would be impossible to explain in a single afternoon. In moments like these, it's easier to pretend he knows nothing at all.

"May I take your hand?" Lunafreya asks, holding out her own. 

Noct tilts his head at her, curious. He's heard people compare his magic to that of the Oracle's, though Izunia had only laughed and said that was like the difference between a trickling stream and a raging waterfall. Noct's power is the magic of the Crystal, beyond _measure_. Whatever the Oracle is allowed by her connection to the gods but a mere echo of forces beyond her means.

Noct places his hand against Lunafreya's, watching as golden light blooms.

Izunia smiles again, draping his arms over Noct's shoulders and adding his own hand. _"Draw,_ " he says into Noct's ear, and the golden light swirls up Noct's arm, sinking into his skin, more and more of it, until there's nothing left.

The Oracle is staring at him in shock, her hands cold where they touch, but Izunia only offers her his smile in return.

-

His father is _furious_ , demanding to know what Noct did, telling him to give it back, everything he took from the Oracle.

"Izunia was protecting me," Noct answers, standing tall. "We need the magic more than she does."

-

"He's close," Izunia says to Noct, pressed back to back with him sitting on the Citadel's roof watching the clouds float by. "My one and truly," holding up his hand to the light, spreading his fingers to let the sun shine through where Izunia _allows_ it.

Noct nods, leaning his head against Izunia's shoulder. He's seen Ardyn in so many dreams now, like he knows him almost as well as Izunia does.

"Are you ready, Noct?" though it's not so much a question, Izunia's been training him for this all his life, the spells and the lessons and the _stories_ Izunia's told him, everything to get him ready for whatever comes his way. It might be the grandest game to Izunia, but Noct knows how to play his part.

He laces their fingers together, he's _ready_.

-

Noct wakes up to Ardyn staring him in the face, fury in his expression, and he's more handsome like this than in the dreams, so much emotion in him that Izunia never shows, even when he's proud of Noct or happy or feeling particularly bored, Noct can only tell by the minutia of the differences in the way he smiles.

 _"Now,_ Noctis." Izunia says in his ear. _"I leave this to you._ "


End file.
